Abdullah may have been a reformer by the benchmark set by other Saudi monarchs. But the standards of Saudi royalty shouldn't be confused with moral ones.

This final paragraph speaks volumes. Where is the moral outrage at the justice and prison system in the US, or the political election process? Only a few journalists like Greenwald or Taibbi hold Obama to high moral standards. Rulers of nations are almost always compared to the benchmark set by previous rulers, any other comparison is disingenuous and self-righteous nonsense. King Abdullah gave women the right to vote in provincial elections and oversaw the opening of one of the premier science and tech schools in the middle east (KAUST). He's not exactly a model ruler but as far as Saudi rulers go, he's a reformer.

"If we look at the data since 2000 (to get a more contemporary perspective), on the liberal end of the ideological spectrum men are consistently less supportive of abortion on demand than women. On the conservative end of the spectrum, it’s women who like abortion on demand less than men do."